Day started with a brief but heavy downpour, so at 8.00hrs we dragged ourselves out of our tents only to discover we are on the front page of the "Scotsman" newspaper.

It wasn't only the front page but we also got the bulk of the second page. Not bad at all although the "Scottish Stonehenge" may be overdoing it slightly - still we shall wait and see.

The key focus of the Dunragit project re. Ancient soils is that lovely mound / motte, which will hopefully have a much earlier component than is presently believed, but was available for assessment. Check again next year for any updates.
On the ancient enclosure site (area A) we managed to find a few nice deep postholes which we sampled for soil micro morphology (thick sections of intact soil blocks). These will (hopefully!) give us some information on the immediate area of the site and possibly the wider landscape, if any remnant prehistoric material has found its way in these and hasn't been too messed around by worms (there have been several spotted , but the fills look quite good to me). The modern soil is very shallow, and we have no buried soils on this site, so the feature fills may have the only information re. Ancient soils. At the very least the samples will tell us a bit more about the individual features and how they have filled in and changed over time, and will provide a background to which future samples from other sites in the area can be compared. 
Speaking of which – together with my mobile unit ( to whom I am very grateful – Dave Brown, Ian Heath and Anne Pangbourne) I checked out the local dunes for deposits on sites which we could explore from a soils perspective. Unfortunately for Dave and Ian, instead of going from the known to the unknown, I decided to explore the non M.o.D. dunes first. Dave and I walked the four mile round trip to Ringdoo Point and found absolutely nothing , not even a flint (but nice butterflies). Ian was then subjected to a shorter trek along the dunes next to the golf course (thanks to the lady in the club house for access). We did find some kind of sea mammal (?) long bone and an intriguing layer of chalk (here?) at one point .bizarre, but not particularly helpful. Realizing that this undirected wandering was not going to work, I decided to go to the known Neolithic site at Tors Warren (excavated by T.G Cowie in the 1970’s) which has a buried soil (and even Ard marks apparently). Thanks to the folks at West Freugh, especially John Brooks, for giving us accesses, Anne and I and Jane Murray (who kindly came along and told us all about the site and the area) found several exposures of the reported buried soil and saw a blow-out site (with burnt stone and worked flint) on one of the points of the dunes. 
Result of this weeks reconnaissance? – I still plan to focus the soil work on linking the individual Neolithic sites to each other and to the landscape between and around them. The samples taken by J.Romans and C.French at Torrsw Warren, along with our new samples from the Dunragit enclosure are a good starting point. Perhaps an auger survey between the monuments and up to the dunes? Some investigation of the wetter areas nearby? Tune in next year..

Ps. Alistair Buckoke – I would love to hear about the C.of K.